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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1942 ..
Mr Cornwell
: You have never bothered to find out, have you?MR QUINLAN
: The term has only occurred now.Mr Pratt
: Not as low as your low personal attack on Mr Cornwell, obviously.MR SPEAKER
: Order members; Mr Quinlan has the floor.MR QUINLAN
: That is brilliant, Mr Pratt. There are concessions for low income earners. For people on low incomes, concessions exist. Is this report saying we should have a special class of people who can receive more than the threshold that would apply to others but, because they are self-funded retirees, they can get concessions where people on the same income as them cannot? I do not think that would be justice. It might be your cockeyed idea of justice, Mr Cornwell, but I do not think that would be justice.That is the only thing I can infer from what you have said. I am happy to hear some specifics, but I can only infer that somehow there is going to be a different class of people who are more entitled than others. That is the only way I can reconcile that.
I note this morning's discussion in relation to privilege and leaks of information. I would refer to what I perceive as a couple of common elements when you think through why something might happen. The first is motive, and the second is previous form. I cannot see that members on this side of the house would have had any motive whatsoever. On the other hand, Mr Smyth has tried to make a media event of things, inviting the media into committees without even telling other members of the committees, for example. Methinks he doth protest too much.
Mr Smyth
: I have not protested at all; you are the ones who have been protesting.MR SPEAKER
: Order, Mr Smyth!MR QUINLAN
: I detected a pre-emptive protest, Mr Smyth. I detected a pre-emptive strike when the question was asked this morning. I thank members because I cannot recollect, through the course of the day, any resounding criticism of the budget. It has stood up and it has received a good reception out in the community. If you strip away the need of the opposition to make estimates the event it is, nothing much has been said against it today.I am disturbed. I have avoided this topic, but we referred to questions on bushfires and whether or not they should be answered. For some time I have sat in this place, biting my tongue at the way the opposition has, I would say, done nothing other than skulked around this issue, wondering how far they can go to try and glean some morsel of political capital out of the process, without having to recognise that many of the structures that were in place to meet this bushfire were the same structures that were in place before. Nothing had been said before the event.
There are people's reputations, futures and standing in the community at stake. This has, to my mind, been a relatively grubby process. The word "grubby"Was used earlier
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